29. Jacob Transforms into ‘Israel’

We saw in Genesis 3, how God reacted to Adam and Eve’s spiritual ‘decapitation’ and the Sin-corruption and mortality that it inflicted on us all. As soon as it happened Adam and Eve ran and hid from God. So God sent His living Word to seek them out and cover their nakedness. That act of ‘covering’ is an incredibly profound revelation. It covers so much on so many levels of our reality, that it will take all of eternity to fathom. And even eternity will not be long enough for us to be able to comprehend it.

Nevertheless, God’s living Word began this process of restoring us all to Himself by bringing us back under His authority and Headship. Not until that happens is He free to transmit His eternal life and righteousness into us. And not until we’re reunited with His Life and Activity will we have the ability to serve once again as His image and likeness. So that’s why God’s living Word was sent to come after us and reunite with us. He is here to recover His human image and likeness!

Knowing this helps disciples in training understand what God meant to accomplish with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and His Chosen People. Disciples can see that through those chosen ones, God intended to do what He did with them, for the rest of the world. In order to bring us out of death and back to life, God must reconnect us to His Word. But that won’t happen until we’re brought back under the Word’s absolute authority, in spirit and in truth. He will not be our Redeemer until He first becomes our Lord, Master and Owner. Knowing this will give us tremendous insight into who our Master Yeshua is and what He is here to do…to us…in us and through us when He says, ‘Follow Me!’

We must know that He calls us to follow Him so that He can teach us to obey Him and by obeying Him, the Holy Spirit can transform us into the Word’s image and likeness once more. God wants to demonstrate, by the Spirit-filled lives of His Word’s disciples, that His Word’s Perfect Presence truly abides and works from within them. When the world sees God’s awesome supernatural Fruit appearing in the lives and circumstances of His Word’s disciples, it will know that God’s living Word is truly risen from the dead and is truly present, abiding in His disciples, to produce the fruit that only He can produce. As that fruit appears in and among us, and as we share what we receive with the rest of the world, the Fruit that appears in our lives will reveal the enormous chasm that exists between disciples of God’s Word and the decapitated people who are still disconnected and live apart from and remain at odds with their Creator.

The Goal

The first three chapters of Genesis reveal that God sent His Word to restore and recover what Sin destroyed. And the rest of the Bible reveals the same thing. Repentance, Reconciliation, Redemption, Regeneration and Total Restoration are what Scripture is all about. And God’s living Word and Holy Spirit are in our midst, progressively fulfilling everything God revealed to be true, fulfilling His every promise, honoring and fulfilling His Blood Covenants, and restoring humanity to its image and likeness of God essence and purpose and destiny.

Our Master came to destroy the works of the Serpent and completely reverse their effects. His finished work of redemption has broken the hold Sin had on the human race and He is now pursuing the process of summoning us and sharing His eternal Life with us all. As that process unfolds, we see Him restoring one person after another us to that original image and likeness of God level of humanity the Serpent took away from us. That’s why the Lord Yeshua said:

“I am the Door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find Pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have Life, and have it abundantly. I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” (John 10:9-11)

The Bible reveals that in the fullness of time, all damage done to God’s beautiful Creation will be completely cancelled out and everything will be restored to God’s perfect, pre-fall Creation specifications. That’s how Perfect our living God really is.

We saw how Adam’s rebellion and disobedience severed us from God’s Word who is our Head or Life Source). We called that ‘decapitation.’ We also saw that as soon as we were severed from our Head, we all died…spiritually, physically and relationally (Romans 5, 6). From that point forward, humanity was radically separated from God and His Word and His Spirit. Our death and Sin-corruption condemned us to a ‘living death’ existence. We were designed and created to be the Word’s image and likeness, but Sin and its consequences made it impossible for us to fulfill our God-given nature, identity, purpose and destiny. So as long as humans remain decapitated, all their initiatives and actions will be dead acts oozing out of dead sources. Death can only produce more death. And death is the antithesis of God’s Life-giving Nature. Life and Anti-Life cannot co-exist or interact harmoniously with each other. They are forever at war. That’s why God’s nature and that of fallen human flesh are utterly incompatible and mutually exclusive.

Will You Choose Life… or Death?

We began to see this by the way God accepted Abel’s Word-derived offering but rejected Cain’s radically independent, dead offering. God always rejects anything that decapitated humans do, or offer Him or try to accomplish. He rejects that regardless of how religious or ‘spiritual’ the humans may try to appear. God judges us and our actions by the spirit that truly animates our flesh. We judge by mere externals. But God looks at something much deeper. We think in terms of having ‘good or bad’ intentions and of ‘right or wrong’ behaviors. But God thinks and judges according to whether we and what we produce are ‘living’ or whether we are ‘dead.’ If we are connected to God’s Word (as our Head), we are alive. And if we’re obeying the Word, and offering the results of that back to God, we are offering to God what we first receive from His Word. When we offer that to God, He recognizes and accepts His beloved Son. Our offering comes from the living Source…and that makes us to be His image and likeness. When God sees the image and likeness of His beloved Word, He naturally receives and embraces it. But if we try to offer something that He did not first give to us through His Word and Spirit, it will always be rejected, regardless of our intentions or its appearances, or the labels we have placed upon it. If it doesn’t come from His Word, it is dead and God will not accept it.

When the living Word of God (Yeshua) first revealed Himself to Abram, Abram, like all the rest of us, was born spiritually decapitated and therefore, spiritually ‘dead.’ He was still in that condition when God initiated their relationship. Abram had a dead spirit, a fallen independent soul and a mortal body. But because he believed (embraced and obeyed God’s Word) He was spiritually reunited to His Head and began to receive and share in the Word’s eternal life; and whatever he did in that state was alive and pleasing in God’s sight.

We call that the state of being ‘saved.’ Abram’s obedient faith enabled him to cross over from death to life. And since the word ‘Hebrew’ is believed to connote ‘one who crosses over’ or completes some form of total, life-transforming ‘exodus transition,’ then we can see that Abram, who later became ‘Abraham,’ was the first Hebrew.

That ‘crossing over’ happens when we accept and receive from God the ability to believe what His living Word reveals to us and then choose to obey whatever He commands us to do. By doing that we truly repent of our former radical independence from God; our hearts become right and open to God. We stop disbelieving and disobeying His Word and turn and come under His full authority. That’s when the Word becomes our Head, and we become like living members of His ‘Body’. And the Life that is in the Word…comes into us. And that is how the Word recovers His image and likeness which was lost when Adam and Eve rebelled and disobeyed His absolute Authority. The critical element that separates the living from those who are dead is the presence or absence of ‘obedient faith.’ It is only through the obedience that comes from true faith that decapitated dead people can be reconnected to the Source of Life.

“…who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ…” (Romans 1:2-6 Emphasis added.)

“Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 16:25-27 Emphasis added.)

God’s living Word began to make contact with Abram. He even appeared to him in human form at Mamre (Genesis 18). And Abram crossed over from death to life because he believed and obeyed the living Word of God. Isaac did the same thing when the Word came after him. And, finally, so did Jacob. And the Word continued to interact with their descendants throughout the centuries until He appeared again in human form as Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth, the Messiah of Israel.

Whoever believes and obeys God’s living Word makes the same exodus transition Abraham and the others had made. And they too became ‘Hebrews’ in their heart relationship with God’s living Word. They cross over from living death to eternal life. They are no longer decapitated. They have the proper Head on their spiritual shoulders and because of that, the Life of the Head that filled Abram and the others, transforms them also into obedient disciples of God’s living Word.

When that happened to Abram, God renamed him ‘Abraham.’ When God renames someone in the Bible, it reveals the awesome consequences that take place when He regenerates a person spiritually, and the life of His Word begins to rule, reign, abide and act from within him or her. Then we know that this person died to his or her originally decapitated, separated state and is now spiritually brand new. That new spiritual life equips them to completely ‘cross over’ the chasm that separates death from life – mentally, emotionally and physically. Before, when they were decapitated and dead, that exodus was impossible for them. But as soon as they’re reconnected to God’s Life-giving Word, and His life begins to flow into them and operate within them, their spirits are regenerated and they are ‘reborn’ into the state of righteousness…on the Eternal Life side of the chasm.

But after that happens, the need for rigorous ‘disciple training’ becomes self-evident. Spiritually they are brand new creations. But their souls are still programmed and their brains are still wired for the self-centered radically independent agents they used to be and for the rebellious, disobedient lifestyles they were so used to living when they were part of the fallen world’s system. But as soon as they are spiritually regenerated, the need arises for them to learn how to assume or put on and own the new identity, purpose and destiny that go with the new spiritual life they are receiving from their newly enthroned Head and Lord, the living Word of God. Thus at first they are disoriented, confused and spiritually, very clumsy and inept. And it becomes immediately evident that they are in serious need of ‘Disciple Training Boot Camp.’

The salvation of Abraham and Isaac enabled them to unite with God and progressively change course. And the repeated course corrections they had to make enabled them, finally, to ‘dock’ and connect with their true God-given identity, purpose and destiny. And the same thing had to happen to Jacob. He was accurately named, ‘Jacob’ in the beginning. His natural, fallen nature and character and disposition clearly expressed the decapitated ways of thinking and operating that is common to all fallen flesh. Jacob’s ways matched the meaning of his name which was, ‘usurper’ or ‘supplanter.’ He was the kind of man that is driven to control everything himself. And if things aren’t going his way, he feels driven to manipulate and change things in order to get his way. Jacob was the kind of character that will cut in front of you if you are standing in line waiting your turn. He acts as if you are not even there.

But after God trained and disciplined him sufficiently, He changed Jacob’s name to ‘Israel,’ which means ‘having power with God’ or ‘God’s fighter.’ That also became the name of the nation that descended from him. But they often did not live up to that name. And so in Scripture, depending on the state of each generation’s heart toward Him, you will see God alternate. Sometimes He will call them ‘Israel’ and sometimes He goes back to calling them, ‘Jacob’.

Jacob’s twelve sons were the fathers of the twelve tribes and that’s why they are called the ‘Patriarchs of Israel.’ But because Jacob was chosen to be their father, his disciple training had to be stern, very exacting and, excruciating. God gave Jacob a heavy dose of his own medicine. The very thing he had done to his brother Esau was going to be done to him (See Galatians 6:7). Jacob had to suffer enormous amounts of deception and underhanded manipulation at the hands of his uncle Laban from whom he had been forced to ask refuge. When Jacob beheld his uncle, he saw his own mirror image. Laban was an intensified version of Jacob’s deviousness and duplicity. And through Laban, God began to deal with Jacob’s radically independent heart.

Jacob fell madly in love with Laban’s daughter Rachel. But as a result of Laban’s gross deception, Jacob was forced to marry both of Laban’s daughters as well as each daughter’s female attendant. So Jacob ended up with four wives…and the mother of all dysfunctional, strife-ridden families. The two sisters, Leah and Rachel, competed against each other for child-bearing supremacy and Jacob’s affection and favor. And in their competitive quest to produce offspring for him, each sister used her maid servant as a ‘proxy womb’ by which to have more sons…just as Sarah had once done with Hagar. The result was twelve sons and a daughter of mixed parentage. So of course, most of Jacob’s children turned out to be strife-ridden and prone to independent attitudes and behaviors of their own…just like their dad.

Every child of Adam inherits mortal Sin-afflicted fallen flesh. We’re all conceived into Adam’s state of decapitation, born ‘dead’ in trespasses and sins. Anything we do in that state is dead. Death can only produce more death. And the ways of Death are what most children see and hear and learn in this fallen world. But that is diametrically opposed to God’s perfect Life Nature. Anything the living dead produce is always unacceptable and will not pass God’s judgement. So only what originates with God and is given to us by His Word and Spirit is considered to be living and therefore, acceptable to God.

“…you were (born) dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this (decapitated) world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the (Serpent’s) spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with (His living Word) Christ (by grace you have been saved).” (Ephesians 2:1-5 Amplification and emphasis added.)

“…do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” (Romans 6:12-14 Emphasis added.)

Headless people are radically independent and self-serving by nature. They can’t help being that way. It’s the only way they can think, act, react and interact. The dead are disconnected from God and also from everyone else. They are totally selfish and self-centered. Even their ‘good deeds’ are driven and motivated by selfish considerations. They can’t help, change, justify or save themselves or anyone else from the Serpent’s coils. Only Life Himself, Yeshua, the living creative Word of God, can do what is needed to save such fallen creatures. And so God has to recreate and teach, train and discipline them all, to reconfigure and transform their inner workings. That is why disciple training is of necessity, so rigorous, disciplined and firm.

As soon as Jacob came to Laban, His uncle’s radically independent flesh attacked and frustrated Jacob’s flesh at every turn. That began to break Jacob’s self-will and control addiction. Slowly, he realized that if he wanted to live and be fulfilled and enjoy inner peace, joy, well-being and satisfaction of heart, he had to die to his self-reliance, and look only to God. Only if he relied on God’s living Word to share and transmit His Life into him, could this self-centered, grasping man, and the nation that was to descend from his offspring, truly live and fulfill their God-given…Messiah-producing…purpose and destiny.

It is easy to imagine how threatening this God-chosen family, despite its obvious imperfections, appeared to the Serpent and his enslaved minions. This was a chilling threat to their ongoing domination of the fallen world system. Obviously they will not stand by and allow God’s living Word to re-attach one person after another to Himself through the instrumentality of this chosen family. So to prevent the coming of the Word of God as Israel’s Messiah and mankind’s Perfect Atoning Lamb, the Serpent always keeps this family of chosen ones in the cross hairs of his spiritual ‘gun sights.’ And that is why the struggle between the Word of God and the Serpent over these chosen people that are called, ‘Israel’, is always raging in earnest.

In Jacob’s day, there were no inspired Scriptures in existence. There was no written Word of God for him and his family to memorize or study. They had no temple and no synagogues or church buildings to frequent and no ‘praise music’ to listen to or books on spirituality to peruse. And at that time, God’s living Word had not yet appeared on Earth in the human form of Messiah Yeshua, the atoning Lamb of God. So Jacob did not know or have what we modern day people depend upon or take for granted so universally. Nevertheless, he had the pre-Incarnation Presence of God’s living Word with him at all times! Jacob knew and interacted with the One who later would appear on Earth as Yeshua the Messiah. God’s Word had already appeared to Adam, Eve and the others that preceded Jacob. But now He came to Jacob in his dream, and started his boot camp training to kill his radical independence. The Word had been with the people that would eventually prove to be His own human ancestors, right from the beginning. He revealed Himself to them, taught, trained and disciplined them, protected and blessed them…to make sure they would be able to fulfill the purpose and destiny His Father had ordained for them, since before the foundation of the world.

Original Adamic self life must die

That’s why God has to be so tough on men and women with the character and temperament of Jacob. They have to die to their original Adamic life and its ways. We must all be emptied of ourselves so that God’s Word can become our new and eternal Life and redirect the courses of our lives and those of our descendants…toward the Bullseye God had set before us all.

So for twenty years, God used Laban to scourge the self-life out of Jacob, His chosen son. And Jacob was motivated to put up with that, thanks to his great love for Laban’s daughter Rachel. Laban used that love to manipulate Jacob into serving him for twenty years! During that time of Jacob’s ‘Boot Camp’, Laban, on ten different occasions, arbitrarily changed the terms of their agreement. It was always done at Jacob’s expense. So like the rest of us, Jacob had to learn the difference between the decapitated ways of this fallen world’s system and the way it does business, and the ways of the Kingdom of Heaven, where God is the one and only Source and Economy because He is the one and only Source and Lord of all Creation.

So in the midst of Jacob’s great agonizing frustration and pain, God’s Word continually applied God’s Covenant protection and protection and the blessings He had promised to give him. The training and discipline certainly did not make Jacob happy and content of heart, but through it all, he was being protected and blessed and empowered to flourish and prosper. He prospered so much that it caused deep jealousy, resentment and suspicion among Laban’s sons and household. So in God’s good time, Jacob was forced to leave Laban’s domain in order to protect and maintain his household. Surreptitiously, Jacob moved his flocks and family apart from Laban’s and finally he managed to break free completely and enter the next phase of his training.

Who do we think is stronger – our God or our enemies?

It was time for Jacob to return to the land God promised to give him. But to get there, he had to face Esau, who by this time, had also grown to be wealthy, powerful and warlike. This placed Jacob in a position of total helplessness, dread, great uncertainty and soul-chilling danger. His deceptive, controlling, manipulative ways would do him no good now. Esau had sworn to kill him and Jacob had no way of knowing whether or not his attitude had softened over the years or whether he was still as angry and bitter as he was on the day they had parted.

What did Jacob’s disciple boot camp training hold in store for him now? What would he have to learn about His relationship with God at this point? Well, as we’ve seen, a major aspect of being a disciple has to do with becoming the image and likeness of God’s Word. Do you remember the full length mirror analogy we considered? Do you remember what the nature is of a mirror image? There is no radical independence in an image and likeness, no self-life. The image and likeness never entertains independent ideas and initiatives of its own that are different from or in opposition to, those of the person that creates the image and likeness in the mirror. The person and the image and likeness live and operate as one, at all times, and in all things. The Word of God is our Source. We are designed and made to be His image and likeness. So what does that mean to disciples who are called to be His image and likeness? What is in Him that we are to reflect from within ourselves?

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.” (John 5:19b-20 Emphasis added.)

“Someone said to Him, ‘Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.’ But Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, ‘Who is My mother and who are My brothers?’ And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, ‘Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.’” (Matthew 12:47-50 Emphasis added.)

God’s living Word is one with the Father in every way and He obeys Him perfectly. There is not even a speck of self-life in God’s living Word! So must it be with disciples called to ‘follow Him’ as His image and likeness. The Word is the Source; the disciple is the image and likeness of that Source. The two do everything together, as one. But the Word of God is always the Source and the image and likeness follows what the Source initiates. God’s Word always has the lead. And the disciple always follows the lead of the Lord. So when the living Word of God orders us to follow Him, He really means it! You can’t lead and follow at the same time. So when we’re disciples…it’s all about obedience to our Lord and Master!

“And He was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.” (Luke 9:23-26)

This is what it takes for God’s living Word to recover His human image and likeness that was lost in the Garden of Eden. This is what the entire human race was originally designed and created to be and to do. And the current state of the world and its decapitated system display the horrendous damages caused by Sin and the fall of the human race. How far removed we truly are from what God made us all to be in the beginning!

That’s why God’s chosen disciples, beginning with Abram, and Isaac and Jacob and all the rest of us must be trained to willingly, gladly and wholeheartedly choose to do for God’s living Word what Adam and Eve refused to do…we must believe and obey and mirror back to God whatever He reveals and commands through His living and written Word. This lifestyle requires 100% (wholehearted) trust and belief and reliance upon God and His Word and Holy Spirit. It also requires 100% (wholehearted) commitment to share everything with God and 100% (wholehearted) willingness and readiness to receive and share in God’s initiatives and 100% (wholehearted) readiness to obey His commands, no matter what they may lead to or what they may require of us.

Of course 100% is impossible for our fallen, mortal flesh to believe and obey and do in anything! That much love and selflessness goes 100% counter to the way our fallen self-centered, controlling nature and fearful mortal flesh are geared and calibrated to perceive, think, act, react and interact. To make the exodus transition from radical independence over to total union and oneness with God, through His Word and Spirit is totally supernatural and impossible for us to do by our own efforts and by our own strength. We can’t even want to do it! It is like expecting life to come out of something that is totally dead! This is how thoroughly the Sin of Adam killed us! Dead people can’t do anything that God’s perfect nature and perfect standards of righteousness require. So God, through His living Word and Holy Spirit, has to do everything necessary…to us, in us, through us and for us! That’s why His Word has to lead and supply and we have to follow and receive…at all times. The dead have no other choice but to depend on Another…at all times…in all things.

Victory is found at the Cross

This obedience of faith is the Cross that continually executes our Sin-generated self-life impulses and ways. Our Master, acting as our eternal Covenant Representative and Atoning Lamb and High Priest, had to experience and endure what we all have coming. Because He had to identify with us, He even had to identify and share in the death we all have coming. He was Sin-less; but He was sent to represent us in God’s Eternal Covenant. So, in His Perfect Righteousness, He died in our name. And because He was Sin-less, Death, the wages of Sin, had no legal hold on Him. It had to release Him and thus, He passed through the birth canal of Death…and emerged on the Resurrection side of His Cross. So His perfectly Righteous Death as our Representative, killed our state of living death and stripped it off of us according to Blood Covenant legality. Our Head had to go first…as our Atonement and Redeemer. Now, if we submit to His Headship and come under His absolute Authority, we can follow Him into His atoning, Righteous Death. And His Death can cut the coils of the Serpent off of us. And we too can follow Him into Resurrection and Eternal Life.

Only the death of our original living death can free us from our corporate Sin and our individual sins and their rightful consequences. So the paradox of our salvation is that we can only be saved from our very strong urge to live in radical independence, by dying to it. We can only overcome its strong hold over us by becoming totally weak, helpless and dependent on God; and we can only triumph over Sin and our demonic enemies, by losing everything we once clutched to, out of love for and obedience to, our Lord and Master. By joining Him in His righteous death we are emptied of the guilt and condemnation that killed us. So by dying to our self-life, we make way in our desert, living death existence, for the coming of His total Life-giving Takeover.

“A voice is calling, ‘Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley; then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

“A voice says, ‘Call out.’ Then he answered, ‘What shall I call out?’ All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever!” (Isaiah 40:3-8)

This is what Jacob had to learn at this time of his life. As he was leaving Laban’s ‘oven,’ word came to him that Esau was heading in his direction with an entourage of 400 armed men! Now the crucifixion and execution of Jacob’s conniving, controlling, manipulative self-life moved to its next stage:

^“Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and the herds and the camels, into two companies; for he said, ‘If Esau comes to the one company and attacks it, then the company which is left will escape.’

“Jacob said, ‘O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord, who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will prosper you,’ I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness and of all the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant; for with my staff only I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, that he will come and attack me and the mothers with the children. For You said, ‘I will surely prosper you and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which is too great to be numbered.’” (Genesis 32:7-12)

We can only imagine the distress Jacob felt at this time. It is the distress of a human being on the brink of death. It is the distress of a human being confronted by the full hatred and malice of the Prince of Darkness and all of his demonic hordes. It is the distress many fallen humans feel that compels them to end it all by committing suicide. And it is the distress our Master had to experience in His own Sin-less flesh and innocent human soul on the night that He was in such great anguish that His sweat became as drops of blood that were forced through the pores of His skin:

“And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them, ‘My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me.’

“When He arrived at the place, He said to them, ‘Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, ‘Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.’ Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. When He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow, and said to them, ‘Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation.’” (Luke 22:40-46)

The living Word of God is being revealed by His Father’s Holy Spirit throughout all of Scripture. When Adam and Eve tried to hide themselves in the Garden of Eden, He was sent after them by His Father…to cover their Sin-corrupted nakedness with the skins of sacrificial substitute animals that had to shed their blood and give up their lives for that purpose. Now, in that other Garden, Gethsemane, the Ultimate Lamb of God had to face the full brunt of what Adam and Eve and the rest of us had coming to us and have always tried to get away from…Justice, Judgment and Execution. We can’t stop running from it; but our Eternal Covenant Representative and Source, willingly embraced it, out of love for us…and went into it and tasted that ‘Cup’ to the very last drop…for our sake.

So what Yeshua would one day have to face and embrace the night before His crucifixion was prefigured and prophetically revealed in and through the life of Jacob who could run no longer. Judgment and execution were approaching and he was helpless and hopeless and feeling the full brunt of it. There was nothing Adam and Eve could do to save themselves; there was nothing Noah could do and nothing Abraham and Isaac could do in their own strength to save the fulfillment of the promises God had made to them. And now, there is nothing Jacob can do in his own strength to save himself and his family from the wrath of Esau and the judgment and execution that will follow when the two meet on the following day.

So the self-life of Adam and Eve had to die, and the self-life of Abraham and Isaac had to die, and now…the self-life of Jacob must die as well. In their turn, all of them had to die to their own radical independence from the Word of God. They all had to throw themselves completely upon the grace and mercy of almighty God and depend 100% (wholeheartedly) upon the eternal Blood Covenant promises He had made and promised to fulfill for them through His living Word. And so Jacob endured the ultimate ‘wrestling match’ between his trust in his own flesh, and his trust in His Covenant Lord, who now also appeared to him in the form of a Man, just as He had once appeared to his grandfather Abraham and his father Isaac:

“Jacob was left alone, and a Man wrestled with him until daybreak. When He saw that He had not prevailed against him, He touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with Him. Then He said, ‘Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.’ But he said, ‘I will not let you go unless You bless me.’So He said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ He said, ‘Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked Him and said, ‘Please tell me Your Name.’ But He said, ‘Why is it that you ask My Name?’ And He blessed him there. So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, ‘I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.’” (Genesis 32:24-30 Emphasis added.)

Jacob’s reliance on his radically independent self-life was severely dealt with on that night and was thereafter, ‘crippled.’ The breaking process reached a much deeper level, and his trust in God and reliance upon His Word and Holy Spirit were strengthened and increased correspondingly. And when Esau arrived and the brothers finally faced each other once more, it was obvious by Esau’s supernaturally mild, gentle demeanor, that God’s living Word was fulfilling His Covenant promises to bless and protect Jacob. God was letting Him know that the fulfillment of everything that had been promised by God depended 100% on God’s Word for its fulfillment, and 0% on Jacob or Esau or any other created source. Adam and Eve were spared. Noah and his family were spared, Abraham and Isaac were spared. And now, Jacob and his Sin-corrupted, strife-ridden, messed up chosen family were spared. God’s living Word had been sent to cover them all and take all their woes and guilt and condemnation and everything that all of us had coming, upon Himself.

 ^“Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain false testimony against Jesus, so that they might put Him to death. They did not find any, even though many false witnesses came forward. But later on two came forward, and said, ‘This man stated, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.’”

“The high priest stood up and said to Him, ‘Do You not answer? What is it that these men are testifying against You?’ But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to Him, ‘I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ (Messiah), the Son of God.’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.’

“Then the high priest tore his robes and said, ‘He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy; what do you think?’ They answered, ‘He deserves death!’

“Then they spat in His face and beat Him with their fists; and others slapped Him, and said, ‘Prophesy to us, You Christ (Messiah); who is the one who hit You?” (Matthew 26:59-68)

God’s Blood Covenant Promises are always fulfilled

Just as our Master took the full brunt of what we all had coming because of our Sin, guilt and condemnation, so does He take full responsibility to make us 100% Righteous in the sight of God and 100% approved by God in the sight of the powers of Darkness and the humans that serve them. He will make good on all of God’s Blood Covenant promises, by doing everything Himself, in our name. That is the only way that God’s perfectly perfect standards of righteousness can be fulfilled perfectly. And that Perfection will be applied to each one of us as soon as each one of us willingly lays down his or her self-life, and exchanges it for the indwelling presence and life and activity of the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us.

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

If God’s living Word made flesh has called to you and said: “Follow Me”, then understand what He intends to do. He intends to join you to God’s Family, which began with repentant Adam and continued with believing, repentant Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and…‘Israel’. You too are chosen to be His instrument of Salvation in your generation. You too are chosen to be God’s demonstration to the fallen, decapitated world of what an image and likeness of God really is. So gear your soul to join your Master in His death to self-life.

When the Archangel Lucifer rebelled against God, he became the enemy archrival to His living Word. Only God is God. Only His living Word has supreme authority in the Heavens and on Earth (Matthew 28:18). But Lucifer became Satan (The Accuser). And when he took the form of The Serpent, he was striving to take God’s place in the hearts and minds of Adam and Eve, and unseat God’s Word from His supreme position in their minds and hearts. The Serpent got them to disbelieve and disobey the Word. Thus he decapitated them…he severed them from their true Head.

God is God. Man was made to be the image and likeness of His Word. But men are not God’s image and likeness when they try to take God’s place and be ‘as God.’ They are God’s image and likeness when:

1. They believe and embrace what God’s Word reveals as Truth.

2. They obey whatever God’s Word commands them to do.

3. They love whatever God loves and hate whatever God hates.

4. They allow God’s Word and Holy Spirit to live and act in them and through them so that God can fulfill His will, and plans, and Covenant and purposes through their human spirits, souls and bodies.

But if humans disbelieve what God’s Word reveals; and disobey what God’s Word commands and do damage to what He loves, they become rogue, radically independent creatures that strive to ‘be like God.’ Instead of being the Word’s image and likeness, they degenerate into the image and likeness of the Serpent because they too stand in enmity and opposition to the living and written Word of God.

God’s Chosen Family of disciples must be trained by God’s Holy Spirit, from generation to generation. In His vigorous, highly-disciplined boot camp, He deals with the Sin-residue that always lurks within all fallen mortal flesh. That flesh must die daily as the disciples continue their Exodus Transition from the Sin of the Serpent…to the Perfect Righteousness of Israel’s Messiah.

“For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh; but through love, serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the (condemnation of the) Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.” (Galatians 5:13-26)

The Law condemns those that remain decapitated. But for those that are one with the Word of God, their Head and Life-Source, the Law is an accurate Description!